The Underground Parent

Sunday, January 20, 2013

This week, President Obama
will be sworn into office as the 45th President of the United States of
America. As a history teacher, I was elated to learn he would be placing
his hand on two Bibles, one belonging to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the
other belonging to President Abraham Lincoln, when he takes the oath of office
to lead our great nation. Dr. King and President Lincoln helped
define civil rights for America...historical heroes who transformed the idea of
justice and equality.

As jubilant as I am that
President Obama is symbolically using the bibles of two of the greatest
Americans in our nation's history, I am saddened that this administration seems
to have forgotten what Dr. King and President Lincoln promoted regarding
education.

In Dr. King's
"Letter from the Birmingham Jail," he stated "the goal of
America is freedom." As a teacher, it is such an honor to teach
America's children about freedom and patriotism. However, over the
past few years, I began to learn about a new education reform initiative called
Common Core Standards. A few years ago, when I first heard of Common
Core, I began doing my own research. My students represent the
future of the United States of America, and what they learn is of utmost
importance to me. I care about their future, and the future of our
country.

My research of Common Core
Standards kept me awake at night, because what I discovered was so shocking.
I discovered that Common Core Standards is about so much more than educational
standards. I wanted so badly to believe these changes would be good for
our children. How can "common" standards be a bad thing?
After all, isn't it nice to have students learning the same exceptional
standards from Alabama to Alaska, from Minnesota to Massachusetts?

As a teacher, I began to
spend nights, weekends, summers, even Christmas Day researching Common Core,
because these reforms were so massive and were happening so quickly, it was
hard to keep up with how American education was being transformed. I
quickly began to realize that the American education system under Common Core
goes against everything great Americans like Dr. King and President Lincoln
ever taught. The very freedoms we celebrate and hold dear are in question
when I think of what Common Core means for the United States.

One of my favorite writings
about education from Dr. King is a paper entitled "The Purpose of
Education." In it, he wrote "To save man from the morass of
propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education
must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false,
the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction." When I sit in
faculty meetings about Common Core, I hear "curriculum specialists"
tell me that Common Core is here to stay and I must "embrace change."
I am forced to drink the kool-aid. These specialists don't tell us to
search for facts about Common Core on our own, they simply tell us what the
people paid to promote Common Core want us to know. Didn't Dr. King want
us to separate facts from fiction? Why are we only given information from
sources paid to say Common Core is a good thing? Isn't that the exact same type
of propaganda Dr. King discussed in his writings about education?
Shouldn't we discuss why thousands of Americans are calling for a repeal of the
standards?

I am told that I must
embrace Common Core and I infer that resisting the changes associated with
Common Core will label me "resistant to change." As a teacher,
I definitely believe our classrooms are changing with the times and I am not
afraid of change. Teachers across America are hearing similar stories
about how they should "feel" about Common Core. This is a
brainwashing bully tactic. It reminds me of my 8th graders' lesson on
bullying, when I teach them to have an opinion of their own. Just because
"everyone's doing it," doesn't make it right. In regards to
Common Core, I am not afraid of change. I am just not going to sell-out
my students' education so that Pearson, the Gates Foundation, David Coleman,
Sir Michael Barber, Marc Tucker and others can experiment on our children.

I agree with Dr. King,
which is why I am so saddened at how propaganda from an elite few is literally
changing the face of America's future with nothing more than a grand experiment
called Common Core Standards. Our children deserve more. Our
teachers deserve more. Our country deserves more. Education reform
is the civil rights issue of our generation, and sadly, parents, teachers, and
students have been left out of the process.

President Lincoln once said
"the philosophy of the classroom today, will be the philosophy of
government tomorrow." With Common Core, new standardized tests have
inundated classrooms with problems of their own. Teachers find themselves
"teaching to the test" more and more. These tests violate our
states' rights. I wonder if parents realized that all states aren't
created equal in Common Core tests? Shouldn't all states, under
"common" standards for everyone have everyone's equal input on how
students are tested?

What about privacy under
Common Core? Why didn't local boards of education tell parents about the
changes to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act? Do parents
realize their child's data, including biometric data such as fingerprints and
retinal scans, is being placed in a state longitudinal data system and shared
with others?

If our philosophy of the
classroom is to violate states' rights, use children and teachers as guinea
pigs, and hide from parents the fact that their child's data is no longer
private, it can only be inferred that the philosophy of government tomorrow
will do the same. What is America becoming?

As I watched President Obama
place his hand on the bibles of Dr. King and President Lincoln, the history
teacher in me was overjoyed to watch such a patriotic moment in U.S. history.
And yet, I was crushed at the realization that if we do not stop Common Core
and preserve the United States educational system, the philosophy of our
government tomorrow will not be the America we know and love.

Some steps are more significant than others. When Neil
Armstrong took his first step onto the moon, everyone knew it was the beginning
of a new era. It was the “space age” and it seems everything from the
appliances we used in our homes to the way we thought about foreign policy
changed.

While far less inspiring, I compare the step my state
took to comply with Common Core, to a trip to the moon. Education reform is
hardly new, but in adopting “national” standards, or standards controlled by an
outside consortium in a process that circumvented all the traditional
policy-setting paths of “we the people,” we have entered uncharted territory.
That one step, over a long-maintained boundary in education, makes it more
significant.

"No nation which expects to be the leader of other
nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space..." John F.
Kennedy said when introducing his ambitions for space exploration to the
country.

I’ve heard a similar argument – appealing to our
competitive nature, and our fear of falling behind other nations – used in
favor of sticking with Common Core. Our children’s future and our nation’s
prosperity and security depend on it I’m told. Okay, I’m a Whitney Houston fan.
I too believe the children are our future. But opposition to Common Core is not
opposition to progress, nor is it ignorance of the challenges my children face
in the future.

I see a greater threat to my children’s future in NOT
insisting we adhere to established systems of checks and balances in the
crafting of policy. Upholding our Constitution and resisting government
overreach is what will keep us from falling behind other nations because this,
and primarily this, is what sets our nation apart in the first place.

Bill Gates, whose foundation funded every aspect of
Common Core standards, spoke to the National Conference of State Legislators
saying, "If your state doesn’t join the common standards, your kids will
be left behind; and if too many states opt out—the country will be left behind.
Remember—this is not a debate that China, Korea, and Japan are having. Either
our schools will get better—or our economic position will get worse."

Hmmmm. Do the people in China, Korea and Japan get the
chance to debate issues like this? Exactly.

Come to think of it, did the people of Utah get the
chance to debate the pros and cons of accepting a national curriculum? No. What
Chinese attribute are we trying to emulate here – high math test scores, or
top-down policy making? Do we really believe that we can’t have the former,
without the latter?

Tucker: Without broad agreement on a well designed and
internationally benchmarked system of standards, we have no hope of producing a
nation of students who have the kind of skills, knowledge and creative
capacities the nation so desperately needs…

Zhao: This I will have to respectfully disagree with. The U.S.
has had a decentralized education system forever (until Bush and Obama) and it
has become one of the most prosperous, innovative, and democratic nations on
earth. The lack of a common prescription of content imposed on all children by
the government has not been a vice, but a virtue. As Harvard economists Claudia
Goldin and Lawrence Katz wrote in their book The Race between Education and
Technology: “We must shed our collective amnesia. America was once the world’s
education leader. The rest of the world imported its institutions and its
egalitarian ideals spread widely. That alone is a great achievement and one
calls for an encore.”

The third man to walk on the moon, Charles Conrad Jr.
also said something that resonates with my feelings on the Common Core. He
said, “Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but it's a long
one for me!"

Presented as simple cause and effect steps between
policy and anticipated outcomes, some of the assumptions of how we’ll benefit
from these standards defy gravity of reason and leave me mentally drifting in
midair, wondering how they got from point A to point B.

Just one example of this is in Utah’s Race to the Top
Grant application. On
page thirty-two I read, “Expanding our mathematics initiative, while
implementing the new core, will help us increase our capacity to deliver
high-quality mathematics instruction, which will increase our high school
graduation rate and increase college enrollment.”

So, if we just get the teachers to be more “high-quality”
because they’re using the new standards, more kids will graduate and enroll in
college? That seems like a bit of an oversimplification. I’d love to see the
study that supports that conclusion. What? No references for this claim?

I’m not an expert on writing
grants, or standards for that matter, so maybe the rules are different. All I
know is if I’d submitted a paper to my high school English teacher as lacking
in rhetorical support or references as this I’d have flunked the assignment.

Technically, I guess we did
flunk. Utah was not awarded that grant, but it wasn’t for that reason. This
statement from the document sent to Utah explaining why our grant was rejected
is especially telling:

“Utah, however, has presented
evidence through its statements that the State is not taking the lead at
developing fiscal, policy, and public support for LEAs; its leaving that to
LEAs to do themselves.”

In other words, Utah didn’t
get the grant because there is still too much local control afforded to each
local school district. I can’t help but feel that this exposes the true landing
point of these reforms – a shifting of control away from LEAs and away from the
state.

Now, before someone
reiterates the claim that this is a “state-led” initiative I have to ask this
question, “To which branch of government does the National Governor’s
Association belong?”

The NGA is a trade
organization, not a constitutional representative of the states. The writing of
the standards started and ended there. The NGA and Council of Chief State
School Officers (another trade organization) hold the Common Core State
Standards copyright.

The only participation of
the actual states was whether or not they would adopt the standards – with
federal dollars hanging in the balance. Even the decision to comply with the
standards eluded traditional legislative process or input by teachers or
parents who actually live in Utah. For the average parent wanting to stay
involved with her children’s education, the process of advocacy now may as well
involve a trip to outer space.

The leaps of logic don’t end
with the grant application. The standards themselves are lacking in substantive
references.

In a 2011 article entitled “Common
Core State Standards: An Example of Data-less Decision Making” Christopher H.
Tienken, Editor of the AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, wrote:

“When
I reviewed that ‘large and growing body of knowledge’ offered by the NGA, I
found that it was not large, and in fact built mostly on one report,
Benchmarking for Success, created by the NGA and the CCSSO, the same groups
that created these standards; Hardly independent research.

The
Benchmarking report has over 135 end notes, some of which are repetitive
references. Only four of the cited pieces of evidence could be considered
empirical studies related directly to the topic of national standards and
student achievement.

Common Core centralizes
curriculum in a way that Americans have resisted on Constitutional grounds for
our entire existence as a nation, in exchange for what appears to be the most
expansive, most expensive education experiment in this country ever – and our
children will be the lab rats.

Will we be surprised then,
if the outcomes are not what we were promised?

I worry that if we are
beguiled into accepting these standards, along with the over-testing, intrusive
tracking, and loss of local advocacy – not because they’ve proven effective but
because they have been advertised to us as the only path to our children
achieving the 21st century equivalent of man’s first
steps on the moon – we will live to regret it.

Even if the outcome is
neutral, I have to consider that the legacy of Common Core also includes a
burden of debt, and further erosion of freedoms with increased government
control.

Principles of limited
government (federal AND state) and self-determination are just as important in
education policy as they are in crafting policies for healthcare, or protecting
a free market. Abraham Lincoln said it this way, “The philosophy of education
today, will be the philosophy of government tomorrow.”

We gain inspiration from
past events like the Apollo moon landing, and we gain wisdom in the things
history has taught us about the consequences of not resisting increasing
government intrusion into the lives of individuals.

Maybe Common Core and all the
other programs of centralization and equalization being pushed on us lately are
like to going to the moon – not because we are aiming high, but for another
reason

For a nation that has
enjoyed freedoms and prosperity unlike any other on the earth, the stark
contrast between that way of life compared to the outcomes of more common
principles of government might seem like going from the Garden of Eden to what
Buzz Aldrin described, while standing on the surface of the moon as “magnificent
desolation.”

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

No more decisions behind closed doors!
Let’s get everyone talking about Common Core.

In the spring of 2011 I received a receipt for the sale of my
children. It came in the form of a flyer that simply notified me that my
state and thereby my children’s school would comply with the Common Core. No
other details of the transaction were included. The transaction was
complete, and I had no say. In fact, it was the very first time I’d heard
about it.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s outrageous! Common Core has
nothing to do with selling things, especially not children!

Okay, so the idea that the State School Board and Governor who’d made
this decision could be described as “selling” my children is hyperbole.
It is an exaggeration intended to convey an emotion regarding who, in this land
of the free, has ultimate authority over decisions that directly affect my
children’s intellectual development, privacy, and future opportunities.
It is not even an accurate representation of my initial reaction to the
flyer. I say it to make a point that I didn’t realize until much, much
later… this isn’t just an issue of education, but of money and control. Please
allow me to explain.

That first day my husband picked up the flyer and asked me, “What is
Common Core?” To be honest, I had no idea. We looked it up online. We
read that they were standards for each grade that would be consistent across a
number of states. They were described as higher standards, internationally
benchmarked, state-led, and inclusive of parent and teacher in-put. It didn’t
sound like a bad thing, but why hadn’t we ever heard about it before? Again,
did I miss the parent in-put meeting or questionnaire… the vote in our
legislature? Who from my state had helped to write the standards? In
consideration of the decades of disagreement on education trends that I’ve
observed regarding education, how in the world did that many states settle all
their differences enough to agree on the same standards? It must have taken
years, right? How could I have missed it?

At first it was really difficult to get answers to all my questions. I
started by asking the people who were in charge of implementing the standards
at the school district office, and later talked with my representative on the
local school board. I made phone calls and I went to public meetings. We talked
a lot about the standards themselves. No one seemed to know the answers to, or wanted
to talk about my questions about how the decision was made, the cost, or how it
influenced my ability as a parent to advocate for my children regarding
curriculum. I even had the chance to ask the Governor himself at a couple of
local political meetings. I was always given a similar response. It usually
went something like this:

Question: “How much will this cost?”

Answer: “These are really good standards.”

Question: “I read that the Algebra that was offered in 8th grade, will now
not be offered until 9th grade. How is this a higher standard?”

Answer: “These are better standards. They go deeper into
concepts.”

Question: “Was there a public meeting that I missed?”

Answer: “You should really read the standards. This is a good thing.”

Question: “Isn’t it against the Constitution and the law of the land
to have a national curriculum under the control of the federal government?’

Answer: “Don’t you want your kids to have the best curriculum?”

It got to the point where I felt like I was talking to Jedi masters
who, instead of actually answering my questions, would wave their hand in my
face and say, “You will like these standards.”

I stopped asking. I started reading.

I read the standards. I read about who wrote the standards. I read
about the timeline of how we adopted the standards (before the standards were
written.) I read my state’s Race to the Top grant application, in which we said
we were going to adopt the standards. I read the rejection of that grant
application and why we wouldn’t be given additional funding to pay for this
commitment. I read how standardized national test scores are measured and how
states are ranked. I read news articles, blogs, technical documents,
legislation, speeches given by the US Education Secretary and other principle
players, and even a few international resolutions regarding education.

I learned a lot.

I learned that most other parents didn’t know what the Common Core was
either.

I learned that the standards were state accepted, but definitely not “state
led.”

I learned that the international benchmark claim is a pretty shaky one
and doesn’t mean they are better than or even equal to international standards
that are considered high.

I learned that there was NO public input before the standards were
adopted. State-level decision makers had very little time themselves and had to
agree to them in principle as the actual standards were not yet complete.

I learned that the only content experts on the panel to review the
standards had refused to sign off on them, and why they thought the standards
were flawed.

I learned that much of the specific standards are not supported by
research but are considered experimental.

I learned that in addition to national standards we agreed to new
national tests that are funded and controlled by the federal government.

I learned that in my state, a portion of teacher pay is dependent on
student test performance.

I learned that not only test scores, but additional personal
information about my children and our family would be tracked in a state-wide
data collection project for the express purpose of making decisions about their
educational path and “aligning” them with the workforce.

I learned that there are fields for tracking home-schooled children in
this database too.

I learned that the first step toward getting pre-school age children
into this data project is currently underway with new legislation that would
start a new state preschool program.

I learned that this data project was federally funded with a
stipulation that it be compatible with other state’s data projects. Wouldn’t
this feature create a de facto national database of children?

I learned that my parental rights to deny the collection of this data
or restrict who has access to it have been changed at the federal level through
executive regulation, not the legislative process.

I learned that these rights as protected under state law are currently
under review and could also be changed.

I learned that the financing, writing, evaluation, and promotion of
the standards had all been done by non-governmental special interest groups
with a common agenda.

I learned that their agenda was in direct conflict with what I
consider to be the best interests of my children, my family, and even my
country.

Yes, I had concerns about the standards themselves, but suddenly that
issue seemed small in comparison to the legal, financial, constitutional and
representative issues hiding behind the standards and any good intentions to
improve the educational experience of my children.

If it was really about the best standards, why did we adopt them
before they were even written?

If they are so wonderful that all, or even a majority of parents would
jump for joy to have them implemented, why wasn’t there any forum for parental
input?

What about the part where I said I felt my children had been sold? I
learned that the U.S. market for education is one of the most lucrative –
bigger than energy or technology by one account – especially in light of these
new national standards that not only create economy of scale for education
vendors, but require schools to purchase all new materials, tests and related
technology. Almost everything the schools had was suddenly outdated.

When I discovered that the vendors with the biggest market share and
in the position to profit the most from this new regulation had actually helped
write or finance the standards, the mama bear inside me ROARED!

Could it be that the new standards had more to do with profit than
what was best for students? Good thing for their shareholders they were able to
avoid a messy process involving parents or their legislative representatives.

As I kept note of the vast sums of money exchanging hands in
connection with these standards with none of it going to address the critical
needs of my local school – I felt cheated.

When I was told that the end would justify the means, that it was for
the common good of our children and our society, and to sit back and trust that
they had my children’s best interests at heart – they lost my trust.

As I listened to the Governor and education policy makers on a state
and national level speak about my children and their education in terms of
tracking, alignment, workforce, and human capital – I was offended.

When I was told that this is a done deal, and there was nothing as a
parent or citizen that I could do about it – I was motivated.

Finally, I learned one more very important thing. I am not the only
one who feels this way.

Across the nation parents grandparents and other concerned citizens
are educating themselves, sharing what they have learned and coming together.
The problem is, it is not happening fast enough. Digging through all the
evidence, as I have done, takes a lot of time – far more time than the most
people are able to spend. In order to help, I summarized what I thought was
some of the most important information into a flowchart so that others could
see at a glance what I was talking about.

I am not asking you to take my word for it. I want people to check the
references and question the sources. I am not asking for a vote or for money. I
don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I do believe with all my heart that a
decision that affects the children of almost every state in the country should
not be made without a much broader discussion, validated research, and much
greater input from parents and citizens than it was originally afforded.

If you agree I encourage you to share this information. Post it, pin
it, email it, tweet it.

No more decisions behind closed doors! Let’s get everyone talking
about Common Core.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

The “Garfield Stand” may eventually come to a school near
you following the roll out of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and
related assessment implementation across the country.What is the Garfield Stand?It is what the teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School
are doing---they are taking a stand on important issues related to student
assessment.You can read about it
in the
letter from teachers at Garfield High School and at additional links
provided below.Teachers at
another school, Ballard
High School, are not just in sympathy with their Garfield colleagues; they
are taking the same stand.

This may be the start of our seeing the hundredth monkey
phenomenon related to the CCSS and other education reform issues. Individual
teachers may not be comfortable or may even be fearful of speaking out on these
issues but when they realize other colleagues have similar views and concerns,
collectively they may take a stand as we see at Garfield.

Is the Garfield Stand a preview of what we may see across
the country in the not to distant future as teachers have first hand classroom
experience implementing top down education reform mandates?

I encourage you to read the
letter from the Garfield teachers.The Ballard teachers wrote a letter supporting their Garfield
colleagues.That letter is copied
below.In a few years how many of
the statements below will have a ring of truth if MAP is replaced with SBAC or
PARCC assessments?

25
teachers at nearby Ballard High School signed a letter against continuing to
use the MAP test, and in support of our Garfield colleagues:

Whereas

The MAP
test is a resource expensive and cash expensive program in a district with very
finite financial resources,

The MAP
test is not used in practice to inform student instruction,

The MAP
test is not connected to our curricula,

The MAP
test has been repurposed by district administration to form part of a teacher’s
evaluation, which is contrary to the purposes it was designed for, as stated by
its purveyor, making it part of junk science,

The MAP
test has also been repurposed for student placement in courses and programs,
for which it was not designed,

The MAP
test was purchased under corrupt crony-ist circumstances (Our former
superintendent, while employed by SPS sat on the corporation board of NWEA, the
purveyor of the MAP test. This was undisclosed to her employer. The initial MAP
test was purchased in a no-bid, non-competitive process)

The MAP
test was and remains unwanted and unneeded and unsolicited by SPS professional
classroom educators, those who work directly with students,

The MAP
test is not taken seriously by students, (They don’t need the results for
graduation, for applications, for course credit, or any other purpose, so they
routinely blow it off.)

The
technology administration of the MAP test has serious flaws district wide which
waste students’ time,

therefore

We, the
undersigned educators from Ballard High School do hereby support statements and
actions of our colleagues at Garfield High School surrounding the MAP test.
Specifically, the MAP test program throughout Seattle Public Schools ought to
be shut down immediately. It has been and continues to be an embarrassing mistake.
Continuing it even another day, let alone another month or year or decade, will
not turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse.

I salute the teachers at Garfield and Ballard for taking a
stand.I feel it is unfortunate teachers
feel the need to take such a stand.Should they, and other teachers across the country, be making more of
the decisions that will directly effect their instructional practices and their
students’ education or should those decisions continue to be made by remote
educrats and others at district offices, state departments of education,
business and corporate offices, wealthy foundations, and Washington, D.C.?